The Project Gutenberg EBook of On the Firing Line, by
Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

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Title: On the Firing Line

Author: Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

Posting Date: April 21, 2009 [EBook #3605]
Release Date: January, 2003
First Posted: June 12, 2001

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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ON THE FIRING LINE

by

Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

CHAPTER ONE

Six feet one in his stockings, broad-shouldered and without an ounce
of extra flesh, Harvard Weldon suddenly halted before one of a line
of deck chairs.

"I usually get what I want, Miss Dent," he observed suggestively.

"You are more fortunate than most people." Her answering tone was dry.

Most men would have been baffled by her apparent indifference.
Not so was Weldon. Secure in the possession of a good tailor and
an equally good digestion, he was willing to await the leisurely
course of events.

"My doctor always advises mild exercise after lunch," he continued.

"You are in the care of a physician?" she queried, with a whimsical
glance up at his brown face and athletic figure.

"Not just now. I was once, however." She raised her brows in polite
interrogation. Her involuntary thawing of a moment before had given
place to absolute conventionality. Weldon smiled to himself, as he
noted the change. He had been at sea for three days now, and those
three days had been chiefly spent in trying to penetrate the social
shell of his next neighbor at table. It was not so much that Ethel
Dent was undeniably pretty as that he had been piqued by her frosty
reception of his efforts to supplement the services of a careless waiter.

Now, uninvited, he dropped into the empty chair next her own.

"If I may?" he said questioningly, as he raised his cap. "Yes, I
have had a doctor twice. Once was measles, once a collar bone broken
in football. Both times, I was urged to take a walk after luncheon.
Is Miss Arthur--?"

He hesitated for the right word. Still ignoring h